"

In a letter of a later date there is a remarkable confession, which
harmonises with those already given.

"My pursuits have always been light, trifling, and tended to
nothing but my casual amusement. I will not say, without a little
vain ambition of showing some parts, but never with industry
sufficient to make me apply to anything solid. My studies, if they
could be called so, and my productions, were alike desultory. In
my latter age I discovered the futility both of my objects and
writings--I felt how insignificant is the reputation of an author
of mediocrity; and that, being no genius, I only added one name
more to a list of writers; but had told the world nothing but what
it could as well be without. These reflections were the best
proofs of my sense; and when I could see through my own vanity,
there is less wonder in my discovering that such talents as I
might have had are impaired at seventy-two."

Thus humbled was Horace Walpole to himself!--there is an intellectual
dignity, which this man of wit and sense was incapable of reaching--and
it seems a retribution that the scorner of true greatness should at
length feel the poisoned chalice return to his own lips. He who had
contemned the eminent men of former times, and quarrelled with and
ridiculed every contemporary genius; who had affected to laugh at
the literary fame he could not obtain,--at length came to scorn himself!
and endured "the penal fires" of an author's hell, in undervaluing his
own works, the productions of a long life!

The chagrin and disappointment of such an author were never less
carelessly concealed than in the following extraordinary letter:--

HORACE WALPOLE TO --------

"_Arlington Street, April 27, 1773._

"Mr. Gough wants to be introduced to me! Indeed! I would see him,
as he has been midwife to Masters; but he is so dull that he
would only be troublesome--and besides, you know I shun
authors, and would never have been one myself, if it obliged me to
keep such bad company. They are always in earnest, and think
their profession serious, and dwell upon trifles, and reverence
learning. I laugh at all these things, and write only to laugh
at them and divert myself. None of us are authors of any
consequence, and it is the most ridiculous of all vanities to be
vain of being _mediocre_. A page in a great author humbles me to
the dust, and the conversation of those that are not supe